San Francisco has highest babysitting rates in the country

UrbanSitter, an online babysitter resource, released results of its second-annual national childcare rate survey this month. Compared to last year’s data, rates increased in most major cities, except for slight dips in Los Angeles and New York.

San Francisco came in as the most expensive city for hiring a babysitter at $14 per hour for one child. A nanny, who usually watches a child daily, is more expensive at $15.50 an hour. (These numbers are based on averages for the entire Bay Area so while parents might be paying $20 an hour for a nanny in San Francisco they might be paying $12 or $13 an hour in the suburbs.)

In New York, where rates were the second highest, the price for a babysitter is $13.50 an hour (down from $15.50 last year).

Wait! What? San Francisco is more expensive than New York, the city that repeatedly soars at the top of lists ranking the most expensive cities in the country? The Council for Community and Economic Research just released its sixth annual cost of living index and New York City was No. 1 and San Francisco No. 4.

Yes, the difference between New York and San Francisco babysitter rates is a small, seemingly arbitrary 50 cents so we probably shouldn’t take the city’s standings too seriously. Even so, I found the numbers intriguing and decided to reach out to some local parents to see if they could attest to the Bay’s climbing numbers.

I sent out an email to a San Francisco Yahoo parenting group asking moms and dads to comment on the survey results: Does the San Francisco rate seem high? What are you paying? Why do you think our rates are the highest?

I heard from over 30 different parents and while everyone had varying opinions on whether the rates are too high, nobody seemed surprised that San Francisco is higher than New York. Also, everyone agreed that for the actual city of San Francisco $14 an hour is low. The parents I heard from are paying anywhere from $15 to $22 for one child and $18 to as much as $30 for two or more.

“I do not think this rate is ‘high,” she added. “It is a living wage for San Francisco.”

One mom shared with me that when she was looking for a nanny last year, the quoted rates ranged from $14 to $18 an hour for one child. Now this same mom is looking again because her nanny moved and she’s finding that rates have gone up to $22 to $24 an hour.

“I find that astounding,” Nonoko Sato shared. “The quality of the nannies we interviewed hasn’t changed, and many that I have interviewed (despite my clear posting of our intent to pay over the table) still try to convince me that we should just pay them in cash.”

Why are babysitters so pricey in the City by the Bay?

“This could be the result of a proportionally smaller childcare workforce, fewer colleges, or a less robust public transportation system which makes it tough to for childcare providers to access the childcare job opportunities, thereby creating more competition and higher rates,” Lynn Perkins, CEO and co-founder of UrbanSitter, says.

As a mother of two kids in San Francisco, I think Perkins touches on some good points but I believe there’s much more to it than a small workforce and a shoddy public transit system (which is actually quite good when compared to Seattle). I would assume high salaries and the booming tech industry are probably even more responsible for our city’s high rates—and the responses from the parents below offers even deeper insight:

I actually think it’s just that people pay what they hear other parents are paying. And people want referrals from other parents. Our new nanny came through a recommendation at $20 per hour, but she does do a ton of cleaning, laundry as well during naps. Good nannies talk on the playground and parents get used to the price. If everyone starting paying less then the rates would be lower. Sigh —Noe Valley Mom

I think a lot of the rate has to do with San Francisco’s liberal thinking as far as the value of “women’s work.” I’m not sure that care-giving gets the respect it deserves elsewhere. —Allison Muir

My opinion is that, for a major city, San Francisco (proper) has an unusually high percentage of its population with post-secondary degrees or higher. That translates to much higher household incomes. With the higher household incomes I believe families are able to pay top dollar for good resources. Emphasis on good because I think there is a supply/demand issue here too. In general, I think this all drags the mean and median up. I don’t have numbers readily available to substantiate this theory, but that’s the sense I get from living in the city and working in Silicon Valley. —Eric Chan

I think the rates are high because of the high cost of living here. SF is officially the most expensive city to live in because of high rents (this was in the news a while ago) and so this cost is passed on to the consumer. Nanny/babysitter rates, groceries, rent, etc., are all high here compared to the rest of the country. —﻿Sarah Waziruddin

I think our rates are the highest because people are willing to pay for it. Just like everything else in the city or in California. —T. T.

I believe that child care centers in SF are very expensive compared to childcare centers in other places and this might translate to parents being willing to pay more for babysitters. —San Francisco Mom

I think transit is a huge factor. My best friend who lived in midtown Manhattan could easily import her nanny from the Bronx like clockwork every morning for just a few bucks. They just covered a subway pass for her and she was good to go. If I relied on the 67 just to get good help from the mission or from the BART station, I’d never be able to plan my day. After 7 years commuting myself on the broken system, I can say Muni is a disgrace. And at least I had the luxury of waltzing into my office with a 30-minute over/under every day. With childcare, we need more reliability. —Liz Johannesen

Have you seen what apartments are going for here? Last I looked on Craigslist, you can’t rent a 2 bedroom in popular neighborhood for less than $3,000. The rents here have reached an all time shocking high. My nanny can barely survive as it is. The city has started to become unlivable for the working class. My family would not be able to be here without the good fortune of rent control. If we lost our apartment now, we’d be forced out. —Gloria Maciejewski

The basic cost of living, no matter how frugal you are, is high throughout San Francisco. If you watch the neighborhood parent listservs, it’s apparent that there are no affordable one-bedroom/studios in the neighborhoods that are most likely to have hiring families. Watching the same listservs, I get the sense that there are a host of work-from-home or alternative-work-plan families that don’t employ nannies full-time, so nannies must cobble together full-time work, which is ultimately costly. —Elyse Napolitano

Maybe people [in San Francisco] respect the work involved in taking care of our most valuable assets and want to pay a fair and equitable rate. —Adrienne Opet

Another question I threw out to the group of San Francisco parents : Are we paying too much?

Many parents think San Francisco rates are fair and reasonable considering the high costs of rent in San Francisco. ” I do not think [our rates] are high,” one mom said. These people “deserve to make a living wage.”

But others, especially those with lower paying jobs, are frustrated. I heard from many parents who never go out because babysitters are too costly and who are living in the same tiny flat even though they have two kids because the bulk of their income is going toward childcare.

I am a big advocate for lower rates. I don’t pay less because I feel like a rat paying less than the ‘going rate’ but the result is that I NEVER hire a babysitter except for unavoidable occasions: Back to School Night, Committee meetings etc. If the going-rate were less (if someone felt fairly compensated for $8 – $10 an hour) I would surely hire a sitter to go out an enjoy myself.

Another parent agreed:

I find the cost high. I barely make enough to cover childcare but I do also get health benefits from working.

To reduce the cost of hiring a nanny, many parents are doing nanny shares, where two or three families hire one person to care for their kids. Instead of paying $20 an hour, you might pay $15 or even as little as $10 an hour.

Live-in au pairs are another option, and cost significantly less. If you can provide room and board, you pay anywhere from $7 to $10 an hour. Au pair agencies usually charge the same price no matter where you live in the country. “If you have the space in your home, an au pair really makes financial sense in San Francisco,” says Cristina Magro, the director of Au Pair Care‘s San Francisco office.

For complete results from UrbanSitter’s 2013 childcare rate survey, see below. UrbanSitter compiled their results by surveying Bay Area parents and using the data from the more than 3,000 local babysitters registered with their site.